406 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



weiglit, circumference, dimensions, and in every possible particular, are 

 turned out in myriads by unerring iron liands. The difficulty of manufac- 

 turing by hand such trivial miracles of metal must be evident. It involves 

 such dig'ital cunning, such superlative acuteness of eye, such unnatural 

 patience of effort, that it is almost a wonder how the workshops of Genera 

 and La Ohaux de Fonds continue to replenish their armies of operators. 

 But in the Waltham manufactory these delicate particles are produced by 

 machine^3^ For example, a coil of fine wire weighing a pound is divided 

 and worked out into some 100,000 screws, each the counterpart of every 

 other, and a curious fact in relation to this magical transformation is, that 

 the cost of the wire before it enters the machine is about five dollars, and 

 that when it emerges, its product is valued at $3,500. The exquisitely 

 finished, though almost invisible pailicles, are put away in tiny glass vials 

 like those in which physicians carry the pellets wherewith they exasperate 

 the intestines of men. The wheels and pivots are created by similar 

 methods. The jewels likewise are drilled by unerring machinery. Scarcely 

 larger than grains of sand, they must yet each be probed with a clean 

 round orifice to admit the dainty shaft upon which the wheels of the watch 

 revolve. This is accomplished by means of drills so delicate that they 

 almost elude the unfamiliar vision. They are as fin^as the filaments of a 

 spider's web, yet so strong and hard that they tunnel out these Lilliputian 

 crystals with the swiftest precision. With equal regularity and uniformity 

 the process continues to the end. After the hole is bored its interior is 

 subjected to a perfect polish, which is imparted by rapidly revolving drills 

 fed with diamond dust. The jewel is then readj'^ to take its place in the 

 watch, the correctness of its aperture being measured by gauges so delicate 

 as to indicate the ten thousandth part of an inch. After such or similar 

 adjustment, the various parts are all divided into classes, each bearing an 

 unvarying relation to the rest. As one practical and easily appreciated 

 result of this perfect correspondence, it may be instanced that the owner 

 of a watch of which by accident any part gets lost or injured has but to 

 address the company, inclosing the number of his watch, and stating the 

 organ wanted, screw, wheel, jewel, spring, or what not, and forthwith by 

 return mail comes the desired article, which any watchmaker may adjust 

 to its place. 



It will hardly be credited that some of the watches of foreign manufac- 

 ture contain 600 or 700 more parts. 



Waltham watches are made without the fusee and chain, the uses of which 

 are fully answered by proper isochronism, and the evils of which are irre- 

 mediable. It is needless to say that the more intricate the works of a 

 time-piece, the greater the probabilities of injury, and the less the chance 

 of uniform accuracy of performance. The first duty of a watch is to keep 

 good time. Its other uses are decorative and subsidiary. The simpler its 

 mechanism the more tinistworthy its action; and the system upon which 

 watches are constructed by the American Company is the very perfection 

 of simplicity. The motive power is applied directly to the purpose, and is 

 not dissipated amid a useless complication of machinery. The importance 

 of this extreme simplification of structure must be apparent. The motive 

 force has no longer to vitalize cumbrous and unnecessary impedimenta, 



